Denver’s Landmark Preservation Commission made the right call when its members unanimously shot down an effort by a University of Colorado student to have the old Gates Rubber Co. property landmarked.

The site is a cesspool of contamination, and anything that slows efforts to clean it up and make it ready for re-development is just wasting time.

Eugene Elliott, a CU senior, had ponied up $250 and asked for the designation for three buildings at the site, even though he has almost no connection with the property, unless you count the five times he trespassed to engage in “urban exploring.”

The commission agreed with a staff study, which concluded the site has “low preservation potential.”

Now that this sideshow is concluded, property owners can get on with tearing down the remaining buildings, cleaning up the industrial contamination and marketing the site for redevelopment.

A man pauses at memorial near Century 16 theaters in Aurora. (Don Emmert, AFP/Getty Images)

It’s disappointing, to say the least, to hear about scammers trying to take advantage of the generosity that followed the Aurora theater shooting tragedy.

Aurora police arrested Katie Peroni, 19, and charged her with theft for allegedly soliciting donations for a theater shooting victim who didn’t exist.

Several people had complained that Peroni was representing herself as a caretaker for a child whose mother was wounded in the Aurora theater shootings, in which 12 people died and 58 were wounded.

There is quite enough turmoil in the aftermath of the mass shooting, with legitimate victims questioning how donated money is to be apportioned. It’s appalling that anyone would make this situation more convoluted by injecting lies into the equation.

The bizarre musings of actor Clint Eastwood at the Republican National Convention was the event’s main highlight for 20 percent of viewers, according to a new Pew poll. GOP nominee Mitt Romney was the runner up with 17 percent. Although it must be noted that another 20 percent said there was no highlight.

It seems to me that is more a reflection of the public distaste for the highly scripted nature of these coronations than anything else.

Throw a little surprise in there — a real surprise, not a “planned” surprise — and people are intrigued. Eastwood’s odd discussion with an empty chair that was supposed to be a stand-in for President Obama was off-beat and a little strange. Not what you would expect if you tuned in to the convention.

The fact is, according to other stats in the Pew poll, fewer people watched the RNC than did four years ago. In 2008, 56 percent watched some or all of it, but only 38 percent did this time. That’s a huge decline. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Democratic National Convention registered similar declines.

Perhaps the lesson is that conventions need more “Clint” moments. Or at least a program that isn’t absolute party boilerplate that viewers have heard countless times previously.

A report by Stanford University scientists that found little advantage for organic food over conventional products – reported here by The New York Times – is creating quite a stir, but you have to wonder why.

Studies for years have indicated that the touted advantages of organic fruits, vegetables and meat were often mythical – and especially the claims involving nutrients and safety.

As I wrote in The Denver Post three years ago,
“If some folks want to pay a premium for organic products, so be it. … Organic farming no doubt can be better for the land in many locales – and reducing pesticide use is a laudable goal – but its lower yields are woefully unsuited to meet the world’s needs.

“Nor is organic food necessarily safer to eat. As The New York Times explained in March, ‘An organic certification technically has nothing to do with food safety.’

“Nutrition? ‘On the basis of a systematic review of studies … there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs,’ researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine concluded recently in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

“When I contacted Professor Dawn Thilmany of Colorado State University’s Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, she told me a similar story. The evidence is ‘inconclusive in terms of nutritional values,’ she said, adding only that vitamin C might be enhanced by organic farming and antioxidant levels perhaps improved.”

Some critics of the Stanford study are claiming that advocates for organics are vindicated because it confirmed that conventional fruits and vegetables had more pesticide residue, but that’s only relevant if current safety standards for pesticide residues are way too high. Meanwhile, the idea that fans of organics have never based their preference partly on nutrition, as some are claiming in the wake of the Stanford findings, is preposterous.

If I type my name into Athlinks, the search yields 43 results — all the 5k’s, dips and dashes, duathlons, aquabikes, triathlons and marathons I’ve completed. If I type in Paul Ryan, Paul Davis Ryan, or Paul D. Ryan, I get four men, none of whom appears to have the correct age or appearance.

So maybe 1990 was too early for records in the internet cloud, I think. I type in the name of an older friend who ran in those years — and get about 20 results, dating back to 1990.

My point is, it’s hard to lie these days about your races. Anyone who can spell my name can see that my best marathon time is 5:26:28, in the 2011 Colfax Kaiser-Permanente Marathon. The New Yorker carried a story a few weeks ago about a dentist who apparently invented an entire fake race to showcase and justify his achievements, but successfully prevaricating about one’s athletic prowess in real events is another challenge. Read more…

The rather windy Republican Convention blew up an out-of-context snippet of an Obama speech about government’s role in private sector business into an entire Theme-For-A-Day: “We Built It.”
Oops. I omitted the exclamation point: “!”
So there.
Fine, except there isn’t any there there. As anyone except rabid right-wing ideologues could easily discern, President Obama was referring to the infrastructure underpinning the success of businesses large and small. Infrastructure that was built by the government, the most comprehensive of which is the Interstate Freeway system, built under the direction of then Republican President Eisenhower.
Any thoughtful consideration of where American business would be without “THAT” should lead one to the conclusion that while at times government does get in the way, it more often than not PROVIDES the way. Read more…

Vincent Carroll is The Denver Post's editorial page editor. He has been writing commentary on politics and public policy in Colorado since 1982 and was originally with the Rocky Mountain News, where he was also editor of the editorial pages until that newspaper gave up the ghost in 2009.

Guidelines: The Post welcomes letters up to 150 words on topics of general interest. Letters must include full name, home address, day and evening phone numbers, and may be edited for length, grammar and accuracy.

To reach the Denver Post editorial page by phone: 303-954-1331

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